


echos of a boy

by portraitofemmy



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Anal Sex, Blowjobs, Crack Treated Seriously, M/M, Mid-Season/Series 04, Porn With Plot, Rimming, Time Travel, sex between consenting adults
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:14:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25317376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/portraitofemmy/pseuds/portraitofemmy
Summary: A ritual to remove the Monster from Eliot's body goes wrong, and instead leaves the gang dealing with a 21 year old Eliot. What will Quentin do when faced with this younger version of the love of his life?
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 74
Kudos: 341





	echos of a boy

**Author's Note:**

> **Content note:** as you can gather from the summary and tags, this fic contains sexual content between a 21 year old and a 28 year old. They're both adults, and consenting, but Quentin expresses some reservation that he's not sure he should sleep with a version of Eliot when his Eliot's turned him down. If this subject is going to squick you, I totally understand giving it a pass.
> 
> Thank you to [propinquitous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/propinquitous/pseuds/propinquitous) for gleefully encouraging my nonsense, and beta reading for me ;)

“Well, shit.”

Which is never the thing you want to hear after spending hours laboring over an intricate casting. Quentin scrubs the sweat from his eyes, looking from Kady, her mouth set in a hard, downturned line, to the figure standing in the middle of the ritual circle. The fact that none of them are currently being dismembered means they hadn’t failed in the way they’d been prepared to fail; that is to say, the ritual to summon Eliot’s body while leaving behind the thing inhabiting it hadn’t accidentally brought Monster to them instead. But— something about the figure is wrong, though Quentin can’t quite tell what it is until he spins around, looking wildly around the circle of gathered Magicians, from Kady frowning to Alice’s pinched glower to 23’s exasperation. Quentin’s got no idea what his own face is doing, but it seems to be him that Eliot’s attention lands on.

And it is Eliot. Riotous dark curls spilled down to the collar of the kind ill-fitted button-down that Eliot would never be caught dead in. He’s soaking wet, for some reason, and— well, he’s undeniably Eliot, just a much younger-looking than Quentin’s ever seen. It’s an odd sense of duel reality, the rush of elation in Quentin’s gut of _oh, god, Eliot, El—_ along with the creeping sense of unrest, of something being not-quite-right, like missing a step going down stairs. Part of him wants to rush to Eliot, the other part— feels like maybe he should be throwing up wards, given how explosively bad things tend to follow that feeling of disquiet. 

“Okay, I didn’t do _that_ much coke,” this not-quite-right Eliot protests, looking around the penthouse like he’s waiting for it to fade from his vision. “Did I?”

“Probably,” Kady says dryly, arms crossed over her chest, looking at this— twinky young version of Quentin’s— ex, or whatever, like he’s— “But that’s not why you’re here. Guys, I think we may have just accidentally sent an angry baby god to NYU in 2011.”

“12,” Twink Eliot cuts in, looking from Kady to Quentin to Alice, and back. “It’s 2012.”

“It’s 2019, actually,” Quentin says, as gently as he can, because Julia and Alice are already turning back to the stack of books spread out across the counter, heads bent, and Eliot’s looking— well, scared, honestly, but you’d probably have know him as well as Quentin does to see it. Whatever Eliot’s left behind in 2012, he’s already learned to put some of those walls up. And he’s— god, he’s _Eliot_ , actually Eliot, not the Monster running an Eliot meat-puppet, actual Eliot, just... a work in progress version. A weird little pulse of protectiveness pings through Quentin’s chest as Eliot crosses one arm over his chest to grab the opposite elbow, a gesture of discomfort Quentin’s never seen from him before. “Hey, this is all super fucked up, but you’re safe. I’m Quentin, that’s Kady, Alice, Julia and Penny. Let’s get you a towel, okay?”

Eliot focuses in on him, and much to his own shock Quentin feels himself— _blush_. Eliot blinks, and then a slow grin unfolds over his face, giving Quentin a very clear up and down look like he’s trying to x-ray him. And okay, it’s not like being checked out by Eliot is a new experience, but it’s just. It’s been awhile since he was in a room with actual Eliot, and longer than that since Eliot looked at him like he might be a tasty snack to wash down with whatever cocktail he had in hand. At some point, probably around the time they fell into bed together, Eliot’s looks stopped being assessing and started being— well. Loaded. Feeling uncomfortably aware of his faded blue-jeans and slouchy t-shirt, all of a sudden, Quentin motions with his head towards upstairs 

Eliot follows easily enough, stepping out of the circle, until he gets distracted by the view out the window and diverts his course. “Holy shit, we’re still in New York.”

“Uh, yeah. Upper west side.” 

“This is 2019?” Eliot asks, looking out the window like that might give him some confirmation. “Like for real, this isn’t just like— Angelie and her little bitch cohort playing some kind of huge practical joke on me?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know how to, like, prove that to you though— hang, here.” Quentin fishes his phone out of his pocket, and bumps the power button so the lock screen so the date will show, moving in to Eliot’s side so he can see.

“That’s... some iPhone,” Eliot says, quietly, looking from the phone to Quentin. “This is for real?”

“Yeah, it is,” Quentin sighs, glances over towards the girls clustered around the counter, then back towards Eliot. “Come on, you’re dripping on the hardwood. Which means nothing to me, but I feel like you’d have something to say about it— like, future you would, anyway.”

“Wait, so— I live here?” Eliot asks, following after Quentin as he moves towards the stairs. “Like future me does? I _live on the upper west side?_ I fucking knew I would make it on Broadway, suck it Professor Coram— Are we roommates? Are all of us roommates? I don’t even give a shit, 6 people in this apartment is _so much_ better 4 people in a two bedroom in Brooklyn.”

“I really don’t think I should... be answering your questions,” Quentin says awkwardly, weirdly heart-achey. God... if only he _could_ have made it to Broadway. “Temporal prime directive, all that.”

“Temporal— what?”

Sighing, Quentin digs a knuckle into his temple, pushing on a building headache. Stopping, he turns around to look at Eliot; look up at him, really, he’s still— fucking tall. “It’s from Star Trek. Basically, just like— telling you anything about your future could fuck it up, stop it from happeneing. You can’t know what’s coming.”

The corner of Eliot’s mouth twitches. “You’re a cute little nerd, aren’t you? Am I sleeping with you?”

Which, of course, makes Quentin blush and stumble incriminatingly, because of course it does. What that fuck does he even say to that? “Not at the moment,” he gets out, voice high and tight, cringing before the words are even out of this mouth. Of all the available options, you go with _not at the moment_?

“But we _have_ slept together,” Eliot digs in, because since when has Eliot ever let an opportunity to make Quentin blush go, ever in his life?

“I’m not telling you anything,” Quentin repeats, as good as a confirmation, turning away from Eliot’s smirk and back towards the upstairs hallway. He’s pretty sure he’s got extra towels in the closet of the room he’s been sleeping in, on rare occasions the monster lets him sleep. Eliot just follows along, peeking his nose into every open doorway they pass, a look of open curiosity on his face.

“I can’t believe we live here,” Eliot says in awe, turning to stare up at the art-deco fixtures and molding along the ceiling. “I live with 3 other people in an apartment the size of that kitchen right now.”

“It’s— complicated,” Quentin sighs, opening the door to what he kind of still refuses to think of as _his room_. He sees it again for the first time, now through Eliot’s eyes— spacious, tasteful, a little bland, with a huge bed covered in white linens. He also sees evidence of his habitation: books scattered on every surface, hoodies and socks and underwear left lying on the floor. That, he kicks towards the closet like a cat burying his own shame, but Eliot’s too distracted to notice, taken in again by the view from the bedroom.

“C’mon, you’ve gotta give me something,” Eliot says, staring out the open window. “I’m still pretty convinced I’m passed out somewhere, having a very weird trip. Being vague with the details isn’t helping that.”

“We don’t exactly live here. More like a subletting kind of situation. Temporary.” Quentin kicks his laundry deeper into the closet, grateful that none of it is _visibly_ bloody, and spots the towels in the process, up on a high shelf. Stretching up towards them, he finds them just a little beyond his reach, naturally. Frustrated, he cranes his head over towards Eliot, assessing. And, well— it’s going to come up eventually, isn’t it? For all that Eliot’s remarkably unphased by this, he’s going to need an explanation eventually. “On a related note, hey, you know how you can move things with your mind?”

Eliot freezes, still standing by the window, staring at Quentin. “I– What?”

“Look, I know about Logan Kinear, okay?” Quentin says, as gently as he can while straining up to try to pull a towel off the top self.

“Why the fuck would I have told you about that? I don’t give a shit if we’re sleeping together— I wouldn’t tell you that.”

“We’re not– We’re just, like, good friends? But we can all do stuff like that,” Quentin grunts, straining, until the towel flies off the shelf of its own accord, over towards Eliot, looking at Quentin with a kind of reticent curiosity. 

“You can do this too?”

“Not as well as you,” Quentin admits with a sigh, dropping back on his heels. “But yeah, I can do magic. We’re all magicians.”

“Like— Vegas strip bullshit?”

“No, more like Harry Potter,” Quentin says, watching Eliot start to protest, and then cuts him off. “I know you haven’t read the books, but the last movie just came out, you don’t get to plead cultural ignorance with me.”

The look on Eliot’s face is, if anything, delighted. “We must be _really_ good friends.”

“Yeah,” Quentin sighs, a pang of longing snapping like a rubber band in his chest. “Yeah we are, El. But you— Look, magic is real, and I know I don’t have to tell you of all people that it’s as dangerous as it is wonderful. And I’m sorry we brought you here, but Julia and Alice are the smartest people I know, and Kady’s tenacious as all hell, and Penny’s— here, I guess. They’ll get you home.”

“What were you trying to do?” Eliot asks, a shiver of vulnerable anxiety in his voice. “That girl, she said something about letting a monster loose?”

“I don’t— know how much I can tell you,” Quentin sighs. “We were trying to— Our... you. Our Eliot. He’s in trouble, we were just trying to help him.”

“Oh,” Eliot says, quiet. Seemingly to have something to do with his hands, he unfolds the towel, scrubbing it over his face then scrunching his wet hair. “Well, thanks, I guess, from future-me, for trying to help.”

Quentin smiles weakly, lifting one shoulder in a half shrug, unsure of what to say. Not exactly like he can say, _I’d do anything for you, I’d kill or die for you, like you’d do for me_. He still can’t really stop _looking_ at Eliot, his presence, his physicality. He’s skinner, isn’t he, than the Eliot Quentin’s known, lankier. A little less confident in his body like he’s still not quite used to the length of his limbs yet. But he’s _Eliot_ , undeniably so, and Quentin finds himself seized with the urge to go over and bury himself in Eliot’s arms, tuck his nose into the dip of Eliot’s collarbones where it fits so well and just hold on. 

Flexing his hands nervously, he turns towards the bed to sit on the foot instead. “Why are you wet?” he asks, for lack of anything better to say. “Was that a side-effect of the spell, or?”

“Oh! No, I fell in the fountain. At Washington Square park? Well,” Eliot emerges from the towel with a grin on his face— Jesus, he looks so _young_. “‘Fell’ in, more like jumped? I have a friend who’s doing photography, she’s trying to get like— water shots? And I owe her, because I totally stole a packet of E from her at her last house party, so.”

“So, fountain,” Quentin fills in, shaking his head. “ _Did_ you do a bunch of coke before that? Because we should probably know just for the circumstances of the spell.” 

“Nah,” Eliot shook his head, grinning a little. “Not, like, recently, anyway.”

“Good to know,” Quentin says weakly, trying not to just get— swept away by that smile. God. 

Quentin looks away, trying not to fucking— tear up, just, fucking get it together, idiot. Biting his lip, he clenches his fists against the tops of his thighs, tries to concentrate on breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth. Fucking mindfullness, dear lord. 

“Quentin?” Eliot says, a shade timid, and Quentin can hear him shift closer, the shuffling of wet feet against hardwood. 

“Q,” Quentin chokes out, because he can’t fucking— _handle_ hearing his name in Eliot’s voice like that. There’s a softness to the way he says Quentin’s name, a roundness of the midwestern accent that he hasn’t quite lost yet— it’s too much. “Everyone calls me Q. You— you call me Q.”

“Q,” Eliot repeats, and when Quentin still doesn’t look at him, he shuffles a little closer. “Are you alright?”

Quentin laughs wetly, around the ache in his chest. God, Eliot and his bone-deep empathy, the way he just— _feels_ for people, strangers, feels so much he has to dull it out of the fear it’ll drown him. Steeling himself, Quentin looks up, to where Eliot’s hovering a couple feet away. “I’m fine, El, don’t worry. I just really fucking missed you.”

“How... long have I been gone?”

“I can’t tell you that,” Quentin breathes out on a laugh, finding a smile somewhere buried deep in his chest. “Temporal prime—”

“Temporal prime directive, right,” Eliot repeats, just a hint of sarcasm. “You’re really committing to that bit, aren’t you.”

“Well, I’ve got a brand to maintain,” Quentin quips back, looking up at Eliot’s smirking face. He’s still pretty damp, even if he’s not actively dripping anymore. “We should probably find you some dry clothes, huh?”

“I dunno,” Eliot— _flirts_ , he’s fucking flirting, Quentin’s going to fucking die. “I could just... take these off?” He accompanies the words, dragging a finger across the buttons, and it’s not Eliot’s normal smoothness, maybe but— it’s more than Quentin can handle by a mile.

“Nope! No, definitely— you should _definitely_ not do that,” Quentin stutters out, stumbling off the bed towards the door. “There’s— Penny’s stuff will probably fit you better than mine, let’s go. Like. Check that.”

The flirting doesn’t exactly _stop_ after that, either.

It’s low level, but pretty much constant. It reminds Quentin, god, so much of being 23 and having Eliot’s attention focused on him for the first time. He remembers how addictive that attention had been, how he’d— never really entertained the possibility that he was going to _do_ anything with it, not when he’d pretty much keyed in on Alice immediately, not when Quentin had so few male friends in his life that the idea of throwing one of them away from something as dumb as sex seemed pretty foolish. But it had been _nice_ , to feel wanted, to feel Eliot’s interest. Quentin let Eliot flirt and didn’t let Eliot push him around too much, and that seemed like a pretty solid basis for a friendship. That and the startling moments of vulnerability that actually, for once, succeed in making Quentin feel less alone rather than just irritated. 

Eliot’s one of the only people who’s ever managed that. 

He hopes he can give it back now. It doesn’t take 50 years of knowledge of Eliot to see that the flirting is a thin veneer over mounting anxiety, that he’s latching on to Quentin as the person who he feels most stable with and is shaping that into a context he can relate to. It doesn’t help that no one else in the penthouse can even stand to look at him, Julia and Alice both startling whenever Eliot walks into the room like he’s still the Monster. Penny and Kady seem fairly disaffected but that’s pretty much their vibe in general.

That leaves Quentin to entertain him. Which is, honestly, much better than entertaining the Monster. Eliot wants to go out and see the city, and as much as Quentin thinks telling him too much about the future is a bad idea— how much can New York have changed in seven years, really? Especially once it becomes obvious that by “see the city” Eliot means “go get drunk in a bar.” Who can blame him, really, given everything he’s dealt with in one very strange day. Quentin also kind of wants to go get drunk in a bar. So they do— the first manageably priced bar they fined, a concession since Quentin won’t let Eliot take him to the bar he apparently worked at in 2012. That just seems like asking for trouble.

Julia’s still awake when they get home, much later than Quentin intended, and she helps pour Eliot into a bed, any random bed that doesn’t have someone sleeping in it. Then she follows Quentin out to the kitchen, probably prepared to hold back his hair as he pukes in the sink like an undergrad. But he just curls up on one of the barstools with his feet underneath him, feeling more lost and confused than he’s let himself really think about. Part of him really just wants to sink his head onto the cool countertop and go to sleep, but Julia passes him a glass of water that he accepts, making a valiant attempt to ignore the shrewd look on her face.

“You’re taking this pretty well,” she observes, sinking to sit next to him. He can’t even tell if she’s being sarcastic or not.

“What would you do if a 21 year old version of, I dunno, Kady? Appeared in your living room?” 

“Try to help her, I guess,” Julia agrees, still looking at him the way she has been for months, like she’s studying him, making notes, pulling together some picture of the situation in her brain that he couldn’t venture a guess at. Every time Quenitn’s insisted they help the Monster to protect Eliot, even time she catches him staring off into space full of nervous energy, it’s like a little bit of her picture becomes clearer. “Things between me and Kady are pretty loaded, though.”

“And things between me and Eliot aren’t? He—” Quentin breaks off looking away, shaking his head, gaze drawn almost subconsciously towards the room Eliot’s in. “Julia, he shot the Monster because he didn’t want me to stay in the castle, and I was _furious_ with him for it, but. I know why he did it. I know I would have done the same if— if it was him and not me.”

“That sounds like the same version of Quentin who let a niffin live in his back for a month.”

Quentin’s stomach rolls with the unhappy mix of whiskey and heartbreak, and he does tip over until the cool countertop presses into his cheek. Looking at Julia, he can’t summon the will to lie anymore, not to her. “Or the version of Quentin that lived with you and your live-in boyfriend for years before he finished getting over you? Yeah, there’s some common threads.”

“You’re in love with him,” Julia fills in, like she’s not surprised, like she’s been putting those pieces together all along. “Q— since when? Why didn’t you tell me.”

“Since the key quest— the time key.” The vision of the cottage is so clear behind his eyes when he closes them. He can’t pull up specific memories very easily, but the things he saw every day, the impressions of a lifetime, those come to the surface like breathing. He can remember the cottage, the feeling of the tiles, the smell of their quilt, the taste of the skin in the center of Eliot’s chest, salty and rough with hair. “I— Julia, I’ll tell you later, I promise. I just can’t right now. But he’s not just someone I had a weird threesome with, okay? He’s like— it’s more than an ex, even. He’s just— he’s Eliot.”

She sighs, reaching out to push his hair behind his ear like she’s done since he was a teenager. “You keep saying that. I hope I get to actually know him some day.”

“God, I hope so too,” Quentin says fervently. He’s honestly never wanted anything more. 

So the flirting doesn’t really die down, but Eliot does become visibly more comfortable with Quentin over the course of the next couple days. Julia and Alice are working to pick the spell apart, and— they’re still on a ticking clock, because shit with the library hasn’t slowed down at all, but Quentin would be lying if he said it wasn’t a nice bit of respite. Just to have a couple days to relax without having to worry that the Monster’s going to pop up out of nowhere and start dragging him around.

He _sleeps_ , really sleeps, for a solid 10 hours, for the first time in fucking _months_. He helps with the spell, or tries too, but he’s never been particularly good at metacompasition. Alice is good at it the way she’s good at everything she tries, and just because Julia can’t cast doesn’t mean she can’t logic her way through the spell. Kady’s mostly there to keep the fire under their asses, as far as he can tell, but she’s doing it perfectly. She does, at least, not seem to get under foot the way Quentin feels like he always does.

So he mostly just— hangs out with Eliot. At first it feels kind of like babysitting, which at this point Quentin’s pretty used too, except, well— Eliot’s an adult. He may not be quite the person Quentin remembers yet, but he’s still intelligent and charismatic and warm. The part of him that just puts Quentin at _ease_ is still there, even if they’re just spending an afternoon shopping to fill snack food requests from the casters at work. Magic is fascinating to Eliot, and it really doesn’t take long for him to weedle Quentin him to showing him a couple basic tuts. They spend one whole night sitting out on the balcony, smoking through a couple joints and making magical smoke rings, sending fireworks up into the sky.

“It’s nice that magic can be beautiful, too,” Eliot says, quietly, looking up at the sparks of fireworks, their colors dancing in his glassy eyes. The light breeze across the high rise makes his curls dance. Quentin wants to kiss him. He takes another hit, instead. Blowing smoke out in the shape of a dragon, he makes it snap at Eliot’s fireworks, watching with a warm glow in his stomach as it makes Eliot laugh, low and rich and deep.

“It can be,” Quentin agrees, and— tries to remember that, himself. Tries to make himself behave, when Eliot reaches over to take the joint from him after another hit, fingers brushing deliberately against Quentin’s mouth. 

By the end of day three, they’re close to a solution, or so Alice claims. She thinks she can reverse the spell; send this Eliot back to where he came from, and bring their Eliot and the monster inside him back to them.

“Is there any way to separate them?” Kady asks, as they all sit around the living room table munching pizza, examining the spellwork. Quentin’s sitting on the floor, Eliot his side, close enough that Quentin can feel the heat of his body, the warmth of him through the air between them. It’s very distracting.

“Not without risking leaving the Monster behind,” Julia fills in with a dower shake of her head. “I don’t think any of us want to contemplate what that would do to our lives.”

“There’s gotta be a way to bring them back separately,” Quentin protests, playing ideally with the crust of his pizza. Eliot, who’s stayed mostly quiet over the course of the evening, wordlessly hands Quentin another piece. He takes it thoughtlessly, taking a bite. 

“At this point, we’re not even sure we can cast the swap,” Alice says, frowning at Quentin like he’s done something weird, rather than just... chewing his food. “I just think it would be a mistake to add more variables.”

“So we’re just back to helping the Monster build his body and _hoping_ he leaves El—”

“Hey,” Quentin cuts in, looking pointedly over towards Eliot sitting next to him. He’s tense, frowning, looking from Alice to Julia and back to Quentin. “We’re trying to avoid specifics, right?”

“If the spell goes right, he probably won’t even remember,” Alice tosses back, kind of unnecessarily bitchy, if you ask Quentin, but— no one does really ask him, these days. He’d be prickly about it, except— except he’s distracted, by the flicker of open fear on Eliot’s face, before it shutters closed. He mumbles something Quentin can’t make out, and then untangles his miles of legs to stand, heading off towards the bedrooms up the stairs. 

He’s pacing around the room Quentin usually sleeps in when Quentin goes to find him moments later. Sleeping arrangements have been kind of cramped the past couple of days, Quentin spending one night in Julia’s room, another on the couch. Eliot’s slept in here, and as much as it’s kind of _Quentin’s room_ , he still feels a little weird just walking in, even if the door is open. Eliot glances up when he knocks on the door frame, giving him a cursory glance.

“They send you to check up on me?”

“No, I, ah— I don’t think they’d think too, honestly.” Which is not really fair to his friends, but— it’s also not really fair that Quentin seems to be the only person that realizes that _this_ Eliot has feelings too. That knowing too much about his future would scare the shit out of him, and that’s fear isn’t negated by the fact that he _might not remember it_. Sighing, Quentin nudges the door closed, leaning against the wall to watch Eliot pace. He does, for a couple seconds of deafening silence, before turning to go sit on the edge of the bed, facing Quentin. 

“What if I’m _stuck_ here?” Eliot wonders allowed, looking lost. “I don’t know any real magic, I don’t have an apartment or a job anymore— fuck, what do I do?”

“We’ll help you out,” Quentin promises, feeling that surge of protectiveness again. “You’re still Eliot, we’re not going to chuck you out on the street.”

“The shit you guys are dealing with is _way_ above my pay-grade,” Eliot argues, looking a little hysterical. “I’m not going to be any help with this.”

“El, it’s okay,” Quentin soothes, moving over to sit down next to him on the bed. “None of us know what we’re doing. I barely finished one year of magic school, and you’re way more naturally gifted than I am. If we can’t figure out how to get you back, we’ll teach you. I’ll teach you.” 

“Don’t you want him back?” Eliot asks, softly. It’s everything Quentin can do not to wince.

“Of course I want him back,” he says, looking away. He’s been turning that last fight over in his mind for three days. Despite what happened at the park ( _who gets proof of concept like that_ ) he’s not optimistic enough to think freeing Eliot from the Monster is going to end in Quentin being swept off his feet in a storybook kiss. But— he’d be fine with it, to have Eliot back. He’d be fine with watching Eliot marry Idri or— anything, just to have his Eliot back in his life. But— he likes this Eliot too, with his slight awkwardness and open curiosity. “I want him back so much, but— Not in the way you think. It’s not like that, I just. I’m trying to save his life, okay? And then I’m sure he’ll be grateful, but— I mean, the last time I talked to him it wasn’t exactly good. I was angry with him. Just— things are weird, right now. Of course I’d do anything to— But that doesn’t mean I’ll throw you to the wolves, if we can’t get him back.”

“I don’t know what happens between us later, Quentin,” Eliot starts, brows pinching, and— god, that soft lilt to his voice, it makes Quentin’s heart ache. “Or I probably do, I can’t imagine I’m— good to you, or whatever—”

“You were,” Quentin cuts in, because fuck— _fuck_ everything, honestly. “You’re a really good boyfriend, Eliot, when you let yourself be. You just... don’t let yourself be, I guess.”

“Yeah, that tracks,” Eliot mutters, looking down, and Quentin wants to touch him so badly it’s like— probably objectively a little weird. But god, there’s a softness to his face that Quentin’s never known, despite the sharp line of his jaw, the point of his chin. He’s known a version of Eliot from 26 up to 80, but he’s still not used to this one. This Eliot’s not shy, but he’s still a little unsure. “Still, I— you’ve just been really great. So, thanks, for everything. I should probably stop trying to hit on you.”

“I hope you don’t,” Quentin’s saying, almost joking, before he can even think about it. “You’ve been hitting on me since the day we met, I don’t think I’d know what to do with myself if you stopped.”

“Yeah?” Eliot asks, a little flush on his cheeks, and _oh_ , Quentin’s never been able to make Eliot _blush_ before. That’s fun. “I mean, I guess it works out for me... in the long run. Guess you let me kiss you eventually.”

“Oh, you wish,” Quentin laughs, bumping his shoulder against Eliot’s, feeling— pleased, a little, at just... the closeness. “I’ll have you know I kissed you. _Both_ times. First time I think you were probably just gonna let me fuck Margo on top of you—”

“Margo?” Eliot cuts in, startled. “Like— my future best friend, right?”

“Yeah— right, that Margo. Is this– like... before threesomes were a thing for you?”

“Well, I mean— Not if you count my very robust and healthy fantasy life.”

Quentin starts giggling, can’t help himself. God, Eliot’s _cute_. Which, of the many adjectives Quentin’s used to describe him before, that’s not one of them. “I don’t, in this case, sorry honey.”

“I definitely need to stop hitting on you,” Eliot says, laughing a little, spreading his own hands on his thighs in a little restless movement. “I’d probably disappoint. Your Eliot sounds much more experienced.”

“You could never,” Quentin says, with way too much honestly, god, just fucking scream _I’m so in love with you_ , why don’t you? “You’re a Sophomore? So you’ve— I mean, there was Dylan, right? Last year? And a couple others from the— the summer program?”

Eliot blinks at him, soft, startled, a little curl in the corner of his mouth. “It’s wild how well you know me,” he admits, twisting a little more towards Quentin, so his knee is pressing into Quentin’s thigh. “Dylan, yeah. And the others.”

“Others trying to get over Dylan,” Quentin fills in, watching the feelings play over Eliot’s expressive face. He wishes, suddenly, that he could tell Eliot that he’d— he gets over the boy who cheated on him, who broke his heart and made him feel like it unrealistic to want someone to love him. He wishes that he could tell Eliot that it’ll get better. But had it, really? He’s not sure anymore. Carefully, he reaches out to take Eliot’s hand, and it— god, it feels the same. He feels the same, the same structure in his bones when Quentin winds their fingers together, just short a couple rings. “I do know you, El. You’re capable of letting someone know you. And not just me, Margo? She knows you, too. Just— for what it’s worth.”

“That doesn’t,” Eliot says on a shaky breath, “really make me want to kiss you less, you know.”

“God, I know,” Quentin agrees, laughing, forcing himself to look away from Eliot’s bright hazel eyes. “But I can’t take advantage of you that way.”

“You’re not—”

“You don’t want me,” Quentin cuts in, looking down at their clasped hands, Eliot’s fingers so long and elegant woven in with his. “I should respect that.”

“I want you,” Eliot argues, hoarse, and when Quentin glances up, Eliot’s looking at him, oddly intense. “He wants you, Q. I don’t— like I said, I don’t really know what happens between us, but I want you. He wants you, I— I know he does. I know it.”

It’s exactly what Quentin wants to hear, and— so much it almost hurts. He wants to look away, so that Eliot can’t just stare into him with those fucking lovely hazel eyes and see just way more than Quentin means to show. But then Eliot’s eyes flick down to Quentin’s mouth, and— he licks his lips on instinct, watching Eliot’s eyes track the movement. Tension crackles through the air between them like electricity. Quentin’s never been so sure that he’s about to be kissed, and finds, in the moment, that he can’t be bothered to stop it. Surrender, after all, is so easy. 

The slide of Eliot’s lips against his is both familiar and startlingly new. The feel of him is the same, the way his nose presses into Quentin’s cheek, the shape of his mouth. But this is an Eliot who doesn’t know how Quentin likes to be kissed, yet, and— doesn’t really know how to feel it out, either. Not the way he will know how, in 5 years time. 

It’s soft, brief, practically chaste even, though Quentin’s lips are tingling when Eliot pulls back. “There,” he says a little smug, eyes dancing. “This time, I kissed you first.”

Quentin barely gets through a laugh before Eliot’s nosing back in, open and eager this time. Sighing, Quentin melts into it, taking the hand still held in his to bring it up to his neck. Eliot takes the hint beautifully, releasing Quentin’s hand to cradle the back of his skull, big hand strong and steady against the back of his neck. Quentin hums happily and opens, shivering a little when Eliot takes the invitation, tongue sliding out to lick into Quentin’s mouth. 

It’s— god, it’s so fucking good, to be touched like this, held steady and kissed. Eliot still feels solid and familiar when Quentin reaches for him, gets one hand steady on the span of his ribs. But they’re weirdly twisted around like this and it would be so much easier if Quentin just— climbed up into Eliot’s lap, wouldn’t it? As much as he loves straining up into Eliot’s mouth, and he does, god, he does, he _loves it but_ — It’d be so much easier if he just slung his leg out over Eliot’s lap and settled right on to his thighs. That’d probably be the point of no return, and he probably shouldn’t, but Quentin—

Hasn’t he earned an hour or two of something good? After the last full year of absolute garbage, doesn’t the universe owe him a little bit of relief?

Eliot gaps in surprise when Quentin climbs up into his lap, pulling back to look up at Quentin, wide eyed and stunned, mouth bright pink and open with his breath. Transfixed, Quentin reaches out to brush his fingers against Eliot’s lips, damp against his fingertips. “Hi,” he stays, kind of dumbly, but— for one in his life, he’s not really worried about making an ass of himself. It’s just Eliot. 

“You’re— you feel really good,” Eliot says, and it’s again, not the smoothest thing, but it makes Quentin laugh. Shifting, he moves in Eliot’s lap until he’s grinding a little on Eliot’s semi, watching his eyes flutter shut. Quentin remembers being 21, getting hard at the drop of a hat, kissing or dancing or an unexpected flash of a bare shoulder. It wouldn’t take much longer for him to start getting hard now, especially with that wonderful line of hard dick to grind on, but— It feels like a waste, doesn’t, just to make out and dry hump when they could do so much more. 

Still, Quentin leans back in to press another kiss to Eliot’s mouth, and another, until he’s grabbing at Quentin’s ass, pulling him down to grind up against. Then Quentin pulls back and cups Eliot’s face, thumbs brushing against his cheeks. “Can I see you, El?”

A flush colors the tops of Eliot’s cheeks. “Yeah, of course.”

Quentin has to climb off for Eliot to get out of his borrowed henley, wiggle his way out of Penny’s plainest pair of jeans. And since he’s standing anyway, it kind of makes the most sense, doesn’t it, for him to drop down to his knees in front of Eliot. He knows himself well enough to know he’d end up here anyway.

Eliot, for his part, actually groans, watching Quentin shuffle in close. “Okay?” Quentin asks, because Eliot’s looking a little overwhelmed, but he nods enthusiastically, a startled grin on his face. 

“God, more than okay.” 

Quentin grins up at him for a moment, holding his gaze, before looking down.

It’s— god, it shouldn’t be _surprising_ that Eliot’s dick is familiar, or that like so many things he’s just a little bit less polished here. Quentin remembers, vaguely, from the single night of memory-hazy lust, that in 2015, when Quentin sucked this dick, it had sat in a patch of almost obsessively neatly trimmed hair. This Eliot, younger Eliot, is much closer to the Eliot of Fillory, who had lacked both the means and the motivation to groom aggressively. And it’s still _Eliot_ , that big beautiful dick, rosey-pink head just peeking out of the foreskin, heavy and pulling down with arousal. It makes Quentin’s mouth water.

The muscles of Eliot’s thighs and groin are tense, his belly trembling, and god— Eliot as Quentin remembered him had a layer of softness over the muscles of his stomach, but at 21 years old he’s leaner, ribs visible when he draws breath, the sharp line of muscles at his hips drawing down to the heavy weight of his erection. It’s there that Quentin puts his mouth first, nosing against the crease between thigh and hips, listening to the shaky inhale above him, one of Eliot’s hands fluttering down to land loosely on Quentin’s shoulder. Smiling to himself, Quentin follows that line of muscle down to the soft skin rough with scratchy hair at the base of Eliot’s dick. Blood hot skin and the sharp masculine smell makes _Quentin’s_ cock ache, trapped as it is in his jeans. With a soft hum, he licks outward, laving his tongue against the tender-soft yielding weight of Eliot’s balls.

“ _Oh, fuck_ ,” Eliot gasps above him, his fingers gripping so hard at Quentin’s shoulders it he can feel the bite of fingernails, and then Eliot’s laughing, bright and surprised.

Pulling back to nose against the side of Eliot’s cock, Quentin looks up into his face, the familiar hazel eyes in his young awed face. “You can pull my hair,” Quentin tells him, feeling an odd rush of power when Eliot’s cock— hovering hard and beautiful-pink inches from his face— jerks visibly, the slit gaping open to drool out a spurt of pre-come. It’s not often in his life he’s gotten to feel _good_ at this, at sex, but he feels it now. “I like it. Having my hair pulled.”

“Jesus, you’re _unreal_. Should we— condom?” Eliot pants, and Quentin’s blinks, almost startled, because— yeah, probably, they probably should, but—

“There’s a spell,” he explains, sitting back on his heels. “It stops— transmission, basically, if you have anything. But I understand if you’re not comfortable with that. I just... don’t actually have any condoms here. I could run to the store?”

“Jesus,” Eliot laughs, head tipping back, black wild curls everywhere. “No, no, please, give me your magical barebacking treatment, who the fuck would _chose condoms over that_?”

“Well, not me, I hate the taste of latex. It doesn’t do much for the mess, though,” Quentin points out, reaching out to work through the series of tuts he’d learned in another life, hoping for both their sakes that he wasn’t about to wipe out the ambient magic in the room. Eliot watches his fingers move in open fascination, then gasps audibly, shivering a little as the magic sinks into his skin. 

“You gotta show me how to do that,” he hisses, eyes lidded as he looks down at Quentin, all raw heat and hunger. Quentin just grins, reaching forward to curl his fingers around the base of Eliot’s dick, pushing forward to lick a little ‘hello’ kiss against the tip. 

Without further prompting, Eliot’s left hand sinks into Quentin’s hair, tangling in the strands a little— Quentin has not had the opportunity to give head since waking up with Brian’s hair cut, so it’s almost a surprise, that there’s not as much for Eliot to pull on. It doesn’t seem to dissuade him though, as Quentin reaches out to curl his hand around the shaft, coax the foreskin down until the glans is on display, eminently lickable and sharp with pre-come.

“A lot of guys think it’s weird,” Eliot says, voice trembling, startling Quentin out of the fog that always clouds up his brain whenever he gets his mouth on someone.

“Your foreskin?” Eliot just nods silently, and a tender protective jolt of possessiveness shoots through Quentin’s belly. He didn’t know that— he’d never known Eliot to be reserved or nervous about any part of his own body. What had it taken him to gain that confidence that Quentin had always admired, even envied? “I love it, sweetheart,” he says honestly, and Eliot’s mouth trembles, gasping open. Quentin squeezes his hand around the shaft again, shivery erotic hunger pulsing in his belly at how _thick_ Eliot’s cock is, how _long_ , dragging his fist up so the foreskin pulls back up over the head and he can lean forward, slide his tongue in between the thin skin and the heat of the blood-flushed head. Eliot grunts, stomach muscles tensing, and— good lord, he’s so responsive, so— _eager_. God, if only they had _time—_ “Someday, you’re gonna get me to put the head of my dick in there too, and I swear, El, it will be 100% apparent how much I like it.”

“Jesus, did he _make you just for sex_?” Eliot groans, and looks a little panic stricken. “I don’t mean that, you’re— you’re great, Q, you’ve been so nice—” Quentin just shakes his head, too busy laughing to feel offended by it. Being with an Eliot who’s not buttoned up to enough to be able to avoid losing his filter is surprisingly fun. 

“I’ll show you nice,” Quentin tosses back, mindless, and then slides his mouth down to meet his fist. And god, even that is almost too much; for as much as he has memories of a lifetime’s worth of cock-sucking, he hasn’t actually had a cock in his mouth since Eliot, four years ago, in the emotion bottle threesome of 2015. Still, Eliot seems impressed, if the shocked moaning and the hand tearing at Quentin’s hair are anything to go by. It’s been a while, sure, but Quentin still knows how to do this— knows how to drop his jaw loose and let spit pool in his mouth, slide out past his lips as he works the head with the tip of his tongue, playing with the glans until Eliot’s jerking with shallow gasps, tugging at Quentin’s hair just to get him to move.

Slick with spit, he works his hand and mouth in tandem, sliding into a rhythm that settles low in his belly. The confines of his jeans really are starting to get uncomfortable but at this point it seems kind of rude to stop just to get his own dick out, and he no longer trusts his ability to multitask enough to get his own pants open without choking. Still, there’s something grounding about the discomfort, and he needs that, so he doesn’t just float away on an Eliot who never signed up to carry that responsibility. 

“Q—” Eliot gasps out sharply, a notable change in his hot low sex noises, and the tugging of his hand has taken on a very specific purpose. 

Pulling off with an audible slurp, delicious and nasty in the quiet room, Quentin does the best he can to keep the rhythm of his hand going. “Okay?” Quentin asks, and Eliot laughs, high and desperate.

“I’m just going to come all over you if you don’t— _oh, fuck_ – don’t stop.”

“Don’t stop?” Quentin asks, blinking innocently, squeezing and working the shaft, leaning in to tongue at the head, practically jerking Eliot off into his mouth. 

“No, no— stop,” Eliot begs, and Quentin does, backing off, sliding hands down onto the soft insides of Eliot’s thighs. 

“I want you to come, though,” Quentin pouts, laying it on thick, because— fucking sue him, he _knows what Eliot likes, okay?_ Thumbs petting against the rhythmic beat of Eliot’s pulse at the juncture of his hips, Quentin’s avoiding his balls by scant inches. “I know I could get you going again. I remember being 21, sweetheart. You can get it up again.”

“I don’t want it to be over,” Eliot protests, then focusing in a little: “I want to touch you, too.”

“I want that too,” Quentin admits, reaching down almost absently to squeeze his own cock, throbbing in his jeans. The pressure is a welcome relief, but he tries not to get lost in it. “Let me make you come with my mouth, okay? And then you can touch me all you want, I promise.”

“Okay,” Eliot agrees. He’s looking at Quentin like he’s never seen anything quite like him. Quentin’s not sure he’s ever been looked at like that before, by Eliot or anyone else. It’s almost startling when Eliot’s hand slides down his head enough to brush against Quentin’s cheekbones. “I hope he tells you that you’re beautiful.”

Emotion sticks like a clog in Quentin’s throat, and he can’t— can’t think about the last thing Eliot, _his_ Eliot, the right Eliot, had said to him, at the castle at the end of the world. Can’t think about _who gets proof of concept like that_ and _I’m alive in here_. Swallowing against the same flood of sticky, messy feelings he’s been avoiding for months, Quentin turns his face until he can kiss at the center of Eliot’s palm. 

“Lay back on the bed?” Quentin prompts, pulling away, and Eliot does, scooting back so only his ankles are hanging off the mattress, leaving the borrowed pants in a puddle on the floor. Quentin follows him up, taking the opportunity to unzip his own pants, a welcome relief as he settles onto the bed between Eliot’s spread thighs. He really had planned to just keep working that gorgeous cock into his mouth until Eliot lost his mind, but suddenly he finds himself struck with other inspiration. That spell he’d cast earlier had other benefits, after all, making you _clean_ in every sense of the word. 

Scooting forward, Quentin reaches out to cup Eliot’s balls, fully and heavy, and yeah— ready to unload, definitely, god, he’s so close. Eliot hums happily, hips working in a little arch against Quentin’s hand, eyes fluttering shut, and Quentin can’t help but smile to himself. Gently he ghosts his fingers back, rubbing over the secret, tender skin of Eliot’s perineum, back to pet, every so light over the furred, puckered skin of his hole. “You ever had someone lick you here?” Quentin asks, genuinely curious. His Eliot had, by the time he got to Quentin, but he’d never mentioned when, or how, or who. 

Looking up, he finds Eliot looking at him incredulously. “You’re going to tell me you like that too?” Quentin grins, shameless, and Eliot flops backward, dark curls spilling in a riot against the white sheets. “I didn’t think people did that outside of, like, porn.”

“People definitely do,” Quentin promises, wiggling down onto his stomach so he can settle in between Eliot’s legs. “Want to try?”

“Fucking _absolutely,_ dear Lord.”

It’s so fucking endearing, Quentin has to hide his smile in the meat of Eliot’s thigh, soft dark hair and softer skin, god. He smells so fucking good. Humming a little, Quentin kisses his way up to the crease of his thighs, the weight of his balls. The heavy line of his dick jerks against his belly when Quentin kisses them, and then back, helping Eliot spread and bend until Quentin can tuck his nose in against the tender swell of flesh behind his sac and lick out, gentle, against the furled muscle. 

The sound Eliot makes is like he’s accidentally swallowed his own tongue.

From there, Quentin just sets to work, licking the flat of his tongue over the tender intimate skin. Soft, so soft, at first, just to let Eliot get used to the feeling, gentle pressure, wet heat. It’s kind of like a game, trying out different kinds of pressure, different speeds, gauging Eliot’s reactions until Quentin can pinpoint exactly what his body’s responding to today. Which is, honestly, _kind of everything_. The game doesn’t quite work, when Eliot’s already on the edge, thighs trembling against Quentin’s temples. 

“Touch yourself,” Quentin prompts, backing off enough to get the words out. “We’re trying to get you off, remember.”

“You’re fucking— _succeeding_ ,” Eliot chokes out, strangled, but it’s followed by the rapid slick sound of Eliot’s hand on his cock. 

Satisfied, Quentin returns his attention to the task at hand. Pointing his tongue, he gets his hands involved in the party so that he can spread Eliot’s cheeks enough to push inside, into the hot clench of his body. Eliot swears, loudly, and does a little wiggling motion like his body can’t decide if it wants to open up and bare back, clamp down around Quentin’s head, or thrust up into his own hands. Well, _that’s_ a reaction, certainly. Apparently what Eliot’s responding to today is penetration. Which, excellent, Quentin can do that for him. Ignoring the mounting ache in his jaw, Quentin pushes forward, working his tongue into the clutch of Eliot’s body, sliding along the sensitive nerves at the rim. 

“Quen— _Q,”_ Eliot gasps, the slick sound on his hand rapid as he tenses, thighs going tight against Quentin’s temples. Then he’s coming with a groan, clamping down hard around Quentin as he licks him through it, lets him ride it out. He laughs when he comes— he still does that. It makes Quentin’s heart ache, oh god, _El_. 

Once Eliot’s limbs start to go slack, Quentin wriggles his way backwards, out of the hot-damp cavern of Eliot’s body. Fuck, he’s so _messy,_ his entire jaw covered and wet, his leaky cock soaking a damp patch in the front of his underwear— starting to become uncomfortable, honestly. Taking the excuse of Eliot being functionally useless in the comedown of orgasm, Quentin strips down quickly, tugging his shirt up over his head and kicking down his unbuttoned pants. He even manages not to pitch right over backwards getting his shirt off, which is honestly probably the most impressive thing he’s done tonight— not that this Eliot would know that.

Eliot grunts a little as Quentin climbs back into the bed, seemingly undisturbed at having missed Quentin getting naked. 

“Where did you learn how to do that?” Eliot asks, stunned, sprawled backwards on the mattress with his limbs spread like he’s been chest-kicked. It makes it exceptionally easy for Quentin to snuggle up into his side, shoulder in Eliot’s armpit so he can rest his cheek on Eliot’s bicep.

“You taught me,” Quentin answers, smug, a little, fucking sue him, it’s _nice to be the one who’s good at sex, okay?_ Reaching out to trace his fingers across the soft patch of hair in the center of Eliot’s chest, so much softer and lighter than he’s used too. He misses it, he thinks, reflectively. He’s always been a fan of Eliot’s body hair— now he just feels weirdly tender about the whole thing, knowing this particular change. Is this what it would be like, if they’d been college sweethearts? Getting to watch each other’s bodies change? He remembers that, a little, from the mosaic. “You taught me a lot of things.”

“I can’t wait to become a sex god,” Eliot sighs wistfully, the arm Quentin’s laying on curling up so Eliot’s fingers can trail against Quentin’s shoulder.

Smiling a little, Quentin wiggles around so he can drop the point of his chin onto Eliot’s chest, meet his eyes. It’s still startling, a little, how young he is. Quentin keeps blinking and expecting a half-beard and laugh lines around his eyes. Instead, it’s all smooth skin and wild, _wild_ curls. “I’ve never seen you this curly,” he admits, reaching a trailing hand up to wind a ringlet around the tip of his finger. 

“Yeah, I—” Eliot visibly hesitates, then, and Quentin can _watch_ him decide, in that moment, to trust. “My dad used to make me keep my hair short. So.”

Quentin just hums in agreement, to show he understands, that he has the context for that particular statement. Like a spool unwinding, Eliot visibly relaxes, so sweet that Quentin has to scoot up and kiss him. Responsive as ever, Eliot wraps around him until they’re on their sides laying practically nose to nose. “I don’t just mean about sex,” Quentin murmurs, when they break apart. A soft hum of curiosity prompts him to continue as he reaches up, touching Eliot’s cheek, his soft curls. “You taught me more than just sex. You taught me a lot about empathy, and about putting other people first. I learned how to be with someone else from you, really be with them, share time and space with them.”

“Oh,” Eliot says, and it’s like Quentin can watch him start to get overwhelmed. This, at least, is a reaction Quentin’s familiar with: this is Eliot fighting the urge to cut and run. This is Eliot looking at the fact that he might be lovable, and not knowing how to react to it in any way other than breaking it. Humming a little, Quentin reaches out for his hand, bringing it up to his mouth. Opening, he sucks the index and middle finger into his mouth, trailing his tongue along the nail, down along the seam between the two digits. It’s an old trick, but a good one: give Eliot something else to focus on, and he might forget to self-sabotage, at least for the afternoon.

Eyes darkening, Eliot watches him in mounting fascination, letting him run the show until Eliot gets bored of it, starts petting his fingers curiously against Quentin’s tongue. Then Quentin pulls off, guiding Eliot by the wrist down, down, downwards, to slide his wet fingers against Quentin’s hot skin. 

“You said you wanted to touch me,” he murmurs, still nose to nose, close enough to see the flecks of green in Eliot’s eyes.

“Yeah— yes, I do,” Eliot agrees, voice thick, and Quentin smiles. 

“So touch me, sex god.”

This, at least, Eliot has some confidence in. He wraps his hand around Quentin’s cock surely, stroking with an easy, steady rhythm, nothing fancy, getting to know the shape of Quentin in his hand the same way Quentin had spent time exploring his hole. It’s— fuck, it’s weirdly intense, to be this close, to be eye to eye while Eliot’s hand works over him, pulls pleasure out of his nerve endings with a steady patient hand. It’s good, it’s _good_ , and Quentin could come like this, he really could, but— he doesn’t want to.

“How do you feel about fingering me?” he asks, voice just a little bit shakier than he’d like it to be, but Eliot seems to draw confidence from it, if nothing else.

“Positively,” Eliot agrees, eyes dancing. “I’m a fan. Let’s do that— do you have lube?”

“Well. Yes, and no. I have magic.”

Which actually kind of derails them a little, because Eliot’s so delighted by the lube spell that they have to stop so he can try it himself, repeatedly until he fixes the form on Westheimer 26 and gets his thumb at the correct angle to conjure himself a palmful of magical lube, the essence of slipperiness made manifest. He is _frustratingly_ good at magic, easily skilled and adept at it. But Quentin has a really hard time being too bitter about it when that magic is being used to coat Eliot’s long, dexterous fingers in slick so he can put them inside Quentin’s body.

Like— priorities, come on.

Gracelessly smearing his own palmful of lube down in the general region of his balls and ass, Quentin flops back on the bed, wiggling his eyebrows invitingly at Eliot until he laughs.

“You’re— really cute, Q,” Eliot says, kind of chagrined even as he says it, like he can’t quite believe he’s being this open but willing to take his cues from Quentin on how they should be together. It kind of feels like a cheat, because Quentin’s not sure that things between them were ever exactly _easy and open_ , or at least that it took a long, long time to get there. 

He can’t feel guilty for long, though, as Eliot settles back onto his side next to Quentin, hand down between their bodies. He’s starting to get hard again, Quentin can feel the wet head of Eliot’s cock poking against his thigh, pushes back gently against it until Eliot hisses a little, hips moving in a little rocking motion. “I told you,” he says smuggly, and then giggles until Eliot shuts him up with a kiss.

Eliot does at least seem to know what he’s doing, fitting his fingers one at a time carefully into Quentin’s body. It’s— god, _ridiculously_ slick, with two palm fulls of magical lube helping things along, but Eliot’s thorough and more or less patient. At least he’s bothering to angle his fingers enough to graze Quentin’s prostate while trying valiantly not to just grind his erection against Quentin’s thigh.

Four fingers in, and Quentin’s acutely aware of the fact that he’s been hard for what feels like hours. Every brush of Eliot’s fingers against his prostate feels like an electric jolt, sending a sharp pulse of pleasure through his balls, making him gasp into Eliot’s mouth.

Planting his hand in the center of Eliot’s chest, he pushes until Eliot rolls away, flat on his back on the bed again. This time though his cock is hard, dark pink and proud, stretching up to leak above his navel. God, it’s— Quentin feels a shiver of excitement just looking at him, the whole of him really but honestly mostly that big, thick, uncut dick. It makes him feel a little _wild_ , it always has, just unhinged enough to push through self consciousness as he throws a leg over Eliot’s hips, straddling him. It’s really quite something, to be looked at the way Eliot looks up at him, a little stunned and more than a little hungry, as his hands drift up to catch Quentin’s hips.

“This okay?” Quentin asks, rocking a little so his balls drag against the shaft of Eliot dick. “Can I ride you, El?”

Eliot laughs, strangled, fingers tightening on Quentin’s hips. “I think I’m going to fucking die if you don’t.”

Reaching back, Quentin gets his hand around the base of Eliot’s dick, hot and stiff under his palm, blood-hot and slick. God, it’s big. Excitement sparks in Quentin’s stomach, because sure, he knows he _can_ take it, but he _hasn’t_ , not in this lifetime. Eliot’s biting his lip, hands petting at Quentin’s sides like he doesn’t know what to do with them, so Quentin takes one of them, and guides it back. “Here, hold me open, okay?” Eliot just nods, wordless, and Quentin smiles at him, pushing up onto his knees until he can set the tip of Eliot’s dick against his hole, rock on it a little so the glans drags against the sensitive skin of his rim, sending tingles all through his groin.

“ _Q_ ,” Eliot gasps, the muscles in his stomach trembling from the effort of holding himself back, not just fucking up desperately into the heat of Quentin’s body. 

“It’s okay,” Quentin promises, placing his free hand in the center of Eliot’s chest for balance. Taking a deep breath, he lets his eyes drift closed, and bears back, pushing back until the head of Eliot’s clock slips into him with a sensation like a pop-and-release. “ _Oh fuck_.”

It’s _big_. 

Which he knew— he knew that. But god, it’s so big, and he kind of knew that he’d be into that, but he’s also not prepared for how much he kind of just wants to impale himself on Eliot’s dick. He knows better, of course, knows to go slow and make sure he’s slick enough, at least at the start, but it’s so hard when he just wants it all in him, all the way. He wants to feel Eliot behind his _navel_ , Jesus fucking Christ. 

“Oh— god, fuck,” Eliot hisses, hands scrabbling, one fisting down into the comforter, the other flailing under until Quentin grabs it. Laces the fingers of his right with Eliot’s left, holding on. He doesn’t exactly mean to catch Eliot’s gaze as he slides down, pushes up a little, and then slides back further down. But he does, and then he’s caught, can’t look away from his flushed cheeks, the way his curls are starting to get damp with sweat. It shines in a sheen across his chest, where he’s all pinked up across his skinny pecs. 

God. 

“ _El_ —” Quentin gasps, and he wants— Fuck he wants Eliot’s hand curled around his throat, he wants Eliot pinning his wrists over his head, he wants— things this Eliot can’t give him. So he shoves them from his mind and squeezes the hand twined with his. “I’m gonna— move, okay?”

“God, fuck, yes, please,” Eliot gasps, voice high, and Quentin laughs, rocking a little until he can start to find a rhythm.

God, he forgot how good it was to ride like this. It’s easy to catch his prostate on every slide, sparks of sensation that turn into a pool of warm, good, tightening pleasure in his hips. Everything tingles, his achy nipples, the heavy weight of his balls, his cock— god, how long has he been hard? Long enough that he’s leaking, a steady pulse of wet running down his dick every time he bares down against the stiff line of Eliot against his prostate. 

“Here, touch me,” he gasps, guiding Eliot’s hand down toward his cock. And god, _god_ , god fuck Eliot’s good at this, at the very least, eminently skilled at handjobs.

It’s so good, such a delicious feeling, that Quentin’s not prepared at all for Eliot to crunch up (the fucking _muscles_ in his stomach, Jesus H. Christ) and brace his free hand on the bed so he can— _fuck,_ kiss Quentin, because he’s still tall enough to do that, fuck his tongue into Quentin’s mouth while Quentin bounces in his lap. It’s the first thing he’s done that Quentin didn’t expect this whole time, and it leaves him shivering, gasping, reaching out to hold onto one of Eliot’s shoulders as Eliot jerks him off and kisses away his breath. 

“I want to feel you come,” Eliot breathes into Quentin’s mouth, rubbing his thumb right beneath the head on the underside of Quentin’s cock, sending spikes of pleasure through his groin. “C’mon on, you’ve made it so good for me, Iet me feel it. Please, Q.”

“Just—” Quentin gasps, losing his rhythm, rocking into Eliot’s hand, back onto his cock. “Just, say my name? Please?”

“ _Quentin_.” That soft accent dropping the ‘t’, _Quen-in_ , god, no one else had ever said his name like that. It’s all he can do not to sob as it crests inside him, an orgasm so intense it almost hurts, leaves sound dull and all his muscles aching as he gasps for breath. Eliot works him through it, pulling at his cock steadily until he starts to shy away from the sensation. 

“Do you always look surprised when you come?” Eliot asks, and when Quentin opens his eyes to glare at him, Eliot’s grinning, eyes teasing.

“You tell me I do,” Quentin grumbles, rocking a little on Eliot’s dick, enough to wipe the smug look off his face. It’s going to start to feel unpleasant soon, but god— he really wants to make Eliot come again, wants it inside. “What about you, huh? You gonna give it to me?” Placing his hand in the center of Eliot’s chest, he pushes him down, and then follows him down, so he’s practically laying across Eliot’s chest, softening cock against his stomach. “C’mon, fuck me.”

Eliot swears, hands flying down to get a hold of Quentin’s ass as he gets his feet braced on the bed. Then he’s pistoning his hips up, slapping into Quentin’s body with an unmistakable resounding sound. Everything’s so slick, everywhere, with sweat and Quentin’s come. Eliot’s curls are damp when Quentin reaches up to card his fingers through them, mesmerized by the look on Eliot’s face: chasing pleasure, pure and simple. Quentin’s not sure he’s ever seen Eliot this given over to it, this uninhibited, this unaware of anything but his own desire. It’s really something to see.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Quentin encourages mindlessly, clenching down on Eliot’s cock. He’s losing rhythm now, breath going ragged, and Quentin doesn’t want to miss it— god, he wants to see every second of Eliot’s pleasure, starving for it more than he was to come himself. “Give it to me, sweetheart, come on.”

He’s so beautiful when he comes, laughing and delighted. 

There’s a moment of stillness, where it’s just their wild hearts beating pressed together, a gold moment of glowing contentment. Then Eliot shifts a little, and Quentin can’t help but be aware of the places they’re starting to stick together with Quentin’s drying come. Groaning, he pushes up, wincing a little at the feeling of their bodies peeling apart. 

“Want to learn another spell?” Quentin asks, and Eliot’s head pops up immediately. 

The cleaning spell is simple, and he learns it quickly— god no fucking wonder he’d been top of his class without ever seeming to study. But at least they’re not a sticky mess anymore by the time Quentin climbs off his hips to settle down next to him on his back on the bed.

This is the part Quentin hates about sex.

The weirdness after— the awkwardness of ‘do I stay, do I go’? But it’s technically Quentin’s room, and— it’s _late_ , and it’s _Eliot_ , who’s always been tactile, as long as Quentin’s known him. He doesn’t really remember the exact details of their first time together on the mosaic, but well— they’d only had one bed at that time anyway. Unless one of them slept on the puzzle, they must have spent the night together after. 

“Should I—” Eliot starts, and Quentin swallows down the weirdness clogging his chest. 

“Stay,” he gets out, and— reminds himself that, god, he’s the— adult-ier adult in this bed right now. Probably Eliot’s feeling weirder than he is. So he looks over, into Eliot’s uncertain hazel eyes. “If you want to. I’d like you to stay.”

It’s almost painful how bright and relieved Eliot’s smile is. “Okay,” he agrees, and— surprises Quentin again, by pushing in just a little to kiss him, soft and nice. 

Later, once they manage to find the energy to crawl up under the covers, Quentin catches Eliot’s arm. He lets himself be pulled into spooning around Quentin’s back, arm wrapping around his chest. It’s— god, it feels so _right_. Quentin tries not to feel too guilty for sinking into it. 

___

Quentin’s jolted wake the next morning to Julia busting into his room with a slam of “Q, I can’t find Eliot, I think he’s missing—”

“He’s not missing,” Quentin groans, as the aforementioned younger Eliot shifts in the bed next to him. Groggily, Quentin pushes up onto his elbows just to check, like, due diligence, all of that. But nope, that’s the now-familiar wild mop of dark curls, all right, and Eliot’s baby-face blushing but grinning at him nonetheless. Sighing, Quentin flops back down, turning to look back at Julia in the doorway. He’s not _super_ comfortable with her just standing there looking startled and amused, but somehow Eliot doesn’t seem particularly shy and he barely knows Julia, so Quentin should probably nut-up about it.

Julia giggles a little, looking pointedly over towards the wall as though to preserve their modesty.

“I’m not exactly _surprised_ ,” she teases, because she’s never going to miss an opportunity to needle him, is she? It’s like in the best friend code. “I don’t know if I’m more impressed or horrified.”

“Can you be whichever of them you decide out of the room?” Quentin asks, pained, and behind him Eliot snickers. Quentin hates him, and doesn’t want to suck his dick even a little bit. 

“Well, hurry up. Alice says we’ve got about two hours to try this spell or we have to wait until tomorrow morning.” Then she’s gone with a wink and a smirk, the door closing in her wake. 

Sighing, Quentin rolls over to look at Eliot, comfortably sprawled out in the bed next to him. “Ready to go home?”

Eliot’s quiet, thoughtful silence speaks volumes. He reaches out, following the path of his finger with his eyes as he traces across Quentin’s shoulder, down across his clavicle. “Doesn’t seem fair,” he says softly, his low voice a rich murmur in the quiet of the bedroom. “If you’d asked me yesterday morning I’d have said yes, of course. But now I just...”

“Want more time,” Quentin fills in, watching the bob of Eliot’s Adam's apple in his throat. 

“Yeah.” He looks a little lost, meeting Quentin’s eyes, sad and wistful. “I just want to get to know you better.”

Sighing, Quentin pushes up on his elbow until he’s hovering over Eliot, can lean down and kiss him, soft and sweet. “You will. In a couple years.”

He wants, god he wants, to just linger in bed for a while. It’s nice to entertain the fantasy of slow lazy morning kisses that spread hunger through them, skin to skin and eager. He could guide Eliot’s head down between his legs, maybe, twine his fingers through those messy curls and hold on, or let Eliot pin him to the bed to fuck again, slow and tender in deference to Quentin’s sore muscles. Or maybe they’d just— kiss and kiss and kiss for hours, rub against each other until everything was hot and slick and messy between them. If only.

They’re dressed by the time Julia comes knocking again, this time with Alice in her wake. Eliot’s back in the clothes he’d arrived in, the too-big button down and ill-fitted jeans, hovering awkwardly while Quentin pulls on his shoes.

“It’s time. We have to do this now,” Alice says, awkward and clipped.

Feeling suddenly— desperate, panicky, Quentin turns to Eliot, to find him already looking. His mouth quirks in something that’s trying to be a smile as he says “I guess this is goodbye?”

“Goodbye for now,” Quentin corrects, ignoring the pit of aching loss opening up in his stomach— god, how is he supposed to just let go? He has Eliot here, now, in front of him, alive and well. Even if he’s not quite right, couldn’t it— couldn’t it still be good? It could be good and meaningful and _beautiful_? Does it matter if Eliot has no memories of their son, if Quentin has to carry their history alone, does it matter? 

But he knows better, really. It does, it does matter. The young man in front of him deserves the chance to make himself, if nothing else. 

Unsure of what to say, Quentin steps forward, looping his arms around Eliot’s neck to pull him into a hug. Eliot meets him easy as a sigh, arms wrapping tightly around Quentin like he might just lift him off the ground. Like him might just try to take Quentin with him. 

“I hope she’s wrong,” Eliot whispers, quiet, secret, just for Quentin, into the space of their hug. “I hope I remember. I don’t want to forget you.”

“You’ll find me again,” Quentin promises, because— well, if he knows nothing else, he knows that. 41 different timelines, and Eliot always found him, didn’t he? Wasn’t that _proof of fucking concept_? “Try to be nicer to yourself than you want to be, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Eliot agrees, then he’s pulling back, looking down at Quentin, oddly serious. “Don’t give up on him, okay?”

Startled, Quentin protests “I would never—”

“I don’t mean whatever you’re trying to save him from,” Eliot cuts in with a shake of his head. “I mean— Don’t give up on this. On him. Please?”

Stunned, Quentin blinks up at him. What does he even say to that? But Eliot just smiles sadly, like ‘ _easier to say than to do, isn’t it?’_ Which, yeah, okay— He’s not wrong. Still, Quentin can’t stop himself from pushing up onto his toes, heedless of Alice and Julia hovering in the doorway, pressing his lips to Eliot’s for a stolen, fleeting second, before pulling away. One last brief look, and then Eliot’s nodding, following the girls back out to where Kady has set up the ritual.

Quentin watches him go, dully wondering if he’ll ever get to talk to an Eliot ever again. He gives himself a moment to wallow, and then swallows it down and follows him out.

He’s got a friend to save.

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found as portraitofemmy on most places, but check me out on [twitter](https://twitter.com/portraitofemmy) and [tumblr](https://portraitofemmy.tumblr.com/). Thanks for reading!


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